


The Blacklist

by SparrowStrike



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Divergent, Canon Typical Violence, Itachi is dying, Itachi realizes maybe the plans he made at 13 aren't the best anymore, Revenge, Terminal Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23537329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowStrike/pseuds/SparrowStrike
Summary: At 19, Itachi learns he's dying. At best he has 2 years to live. All the blood he's spilled and secrets he's kept in the name of preserving peace will mean nothing in 2 years. All the monsters he's fought, warned, and blackmailed into the shadows will be free.Itachi knows the truth of the Uchiha Massacre will die with him. Will Danzou stay in the shadows, up holding his end of the deal with Itachi? Or, without the threat of political assassination from the disgraced Uchiha, will Danzou maneuver the village into war?Sasuke has left the village in search of power, but will he be strong enough to protect himself before Itachi dies? Itachi knows, when the youngest Uchiha awakens his mangekyou sharingan, he'll have a target on his back.At 19, Itachi starts to wonder if the plans he made at 13 years old might not be the best.(I recently binge watched the Blacklist and the idea of a high ranking criminal using his network of morally questionable allies to bring down the worst of the worst kind of stuck with me. So here's Itachi, trying to give the world a fighting chance at peace and make something of his last 2 years).
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	The Blacklist

“You’re dying,” the words echoed through Itachi Uchiha’s dreams and when he woke up they were the first thought to cut through the haze of exhaustion.

Itachi lay still and tried to think of anything else. The straw mattress was thin. It did little to pad the hardwood floor or insulate him from the cold. It also smelled dusty and musty, like it should have ended its life months earlier. The ceiling was low and the planks were rough. Were his vision clearer, Itachi would have lost himself following the wood grain with his eyes. It was a trick he’d used to clear his mind for years, but now he could only see the ceiling as a blur of brown in the predawn light.

Itachi swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear his partner on the other side of the room. Kisame’s breath was still slow and even in sleep.

The distractions available were insufficient, so Itachi reluctantly turned his mind to the problem at hand. 

He was dying. That in itself wasn’t the issue. Itachi wasn’t afraid to die. He’d been aware of his mortality since he was 4 and he’d made peace with the fact that his life was going to be short and brutal the day he entered the ninja academy. 

_ No _ , Itachi decided,  _ dying isn’t the issue _ . So what was the issue? Why couldn’t he swallow around the lump in his throat? Why did his heart ache?

_ Sasuke _ .

In Itachi’s grand plan, he was to die at his little brother’s hand. It was a cruel plan, but it was the easiest way for Itachi to accomplish all of his objectives. Sasuke would have closure and gain the strength he needed to protect himself in a world far more dangerous than he knew. The truth of the massacre would die with Itachi, protecting the village from the backlash of having their own citizens murdered. 

_ It’s a good plan _ , Itachi told himself. The words sounded hollow in his own head and it scared him. Itachi had lived the last 6 years of his life by this plan. His belief in it was what got him out of bed every morning. It was why he pushed through the burning in his lungs during a fight and overwhelmed his failing eyes with chakra, using the sharingan to compensate for the degradation of his optic nerve.

“We got your blood test back. You’re dying. Your immune system is destroying your body. It’s attaching your lungs and your heart,” the doctor had said it without an ounce of emotion. There were drugs to counter side effects and slow the progress, but at best he had 2 years.

_ What if Sasuke isn’t ready? What if even with my eyes he isn’t strong enough? _

  
Itachi shifted. He couldn’t ignore the holes in his plan. Once he was dead, it didn’t matter how he died, Sasuke would be vulnerable. All the power hungry fools Itachi had spent the last 6 years hunting and threatening would go after the last Uchiha and his eyes. First in line would Danzou Shimaru.

The village was only safe as long as someone kept the Council of Elders in check. Danzou kept to the shadows, because Itachi was still out there with the knowledge to bring the council and the village to its knees. _ Will the hokage be able to control them when I’m dead? Or will one of Danzou’s pet anbu put a blade between Tsunade’s ribs before she realizes the sort of threat he is? And what about the Akatsuki? _

Laying there in a shitty hotel on the outskirts of Ame, Itachi Uchiha did something very dangerous. He let himself consider the alternatives. 

There’s nothing like a timeline of your own death to put things in perspective. He’d been following the plan he made at age 13 without question for six and a half years. It was time to consider the possibility that a plan made with the impending annihilation of his clan hanging over his head and Danzou’s words in the back of his mind wasn’t the best option. 

_ What do I want? _ Itachi asked himself. He rarely let his own desires be a factor in his decision making. 

_ I want peace. I want Saskue to be safe and happy. I want the village to be safe and prosperous. No. I want the world to be safe. I want to die someplace quiet, in my sleep. I want to tell the truth. I want to be buried in my village. I want justice. _

What he wanted wasn’t possible. Itachi took a shuddering breath and shoved the thoughts aside. He would stay the course. Sasuke would have to be ready in 2 years.

It must have been louder than he thought, because across the room Kisame shifted.

“Up early,” Kisame mumbled. “You were up late too.”

“Hmmm,” Itachi made a noncommittal sound.

Kisame sat up and stretched. “If you aren’t going back to sleep, we might as well get an early start. It’s a long way to Grass Country.”

Itachi didn’t bother to respond, just rolled out of bed and reached for his pack.

\---

The 2 akatsuki walked side by side. The road was narrow, but deserted. No one traveled these parts much, not since the last Great War decimated the area.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Kisame remarked. He watched Itachi out of the corner of his eye. Part of him wanted to ask Itachi what the doctor had said. The fact that the younger man had even agreed to go to the doctor said it wasn’t nothing.

Itachi didn’t answer for a long minute. He was still turning over his thoughts from earlier. Kisame had been Itachi’s partner for 4 years. In that time, he’d proven himself a good man despite his insistence to the contrary. He had a soft spot of kids, was honest to a fault, and while he enjoyed a vardy, bloody fight he was never cruel to those he killed. He’d had Itachi’s back from day 1, even as he tossed threats at his new partner.

“I’m dying,” Itachi said. 

Kisame stopped walking.

Itachi snorted. A humorless smile danced on his lips. “It’s not really a surprise is it?”

Kisame sighed. “You’ve been coughing up blood for at least 6 months, your stamina is decreasing, and your eyesight without the sharingan is getting worse.” They spent most every minute of their days together, of course Kisame had noticed his partner’s decline. Itachi had made a point of not letting it impact missions, but he hadn’t hidden it. 2 months before he’d bought a pair of reading glasses in Iwa that he used to read mission scrolls.

Itachi nodded. 

“How long?” Kisame asked.

“2 years with medication.”

Kisame started walking again and Itachi matched his step.

“Or tomorrow if a grass shinobi slits my throat,” Itachi added. 

Kisame snorted. “You’re not upset.” It wasn’t a question.

Itachi shrugged. “I’m not afraid to die. 2 years is a long time in our line of work.”

Kisame let the issue drop there. Itachi was right of course.

\---

They made camp that night in the remains of a farmhouse. The roof was half gone and there was a massive hole in one wall, but it blocked the wind and rain.

Sitting across the fire from each other, Itachi could feel Kisame staring at him.

“Ask,” Itachi said. “I can feel you watching.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I massacred my family at age 13. A lot of things are wrong with me.”

Kisame rolled his eyes. “You know what I meant.”

Itachi shifted closer to the fire. It was damp and cold, the sort of weather that chilled you to the bone. “Blood disease. My body is attacking itself. Could have been born with it or got it from the blood of someone I killed. No idea how long I’ve had it, but based on the current amount of damage it's been active for over a year.”

“Damn,” Kisame muttered. He hadn’t realized it had been going on that long. He wondered if Itachi hadn’t realized it either.

Itachi just shrugged.

“Are you going to stay with the Akatsuki?” there was a cautious note to Kisame’s question.

Itachi nodded. “Of course. It’s not like they’d just let me leave. Besides, what else would someone like me do?”

Kisame didn’t answer. He regarded Itachi with calculating eyes. Most people looked at Kisame and assumed he was a dumb beast. That assumption had been many people’s last mistake. Kisame was smart and he could read body language as easily as most read a book. 

Kisame saw the crease between Itachi’s eyebrows and the slump in his shoulders as he stared at the coals. Itachi was thinking. His last question wasn’t exactly rhetorical and it hung heavy in the air. 

Kisame sighed. This was hardly the first time they found themselves balanced on a knife’s edge, in danger of openly admitting the truths they didn’t voice. Itachi wasn’t what he claimed to be. Kisame didn’t know the full story, only that the persona Itachi adopted around the rest of the Akatsuki was a lie. Itachi didn’t enjoy violence. It was obvious from the first time they fought together. He wasn't the cold-blooded clan killer he claimed. He wasn’t a psychopath or a sociopath. 

Moments like these, Kisame could feel the truth sitting on the tip of Itachi’s tongue, but the younger man never let it slip.

Kisame wondered what would happen if he called the Uchiha’s bluff. Would the truth spill like water from a shattered vessel or would Itachi bite his tongue and return to the silence he kept resolutely the first year they were together?

“Itachi…” Kisame started.

Across the fire, Itachi didn’t react.

Kisame let his voice trail off. Itachi’s mind was obviously a million miles away. There’d be no answers tonight. It wasn’t worth calling the Uchiha’s bluff now. Kisame had waited six and a half years for the truth. He could wait a little longer.

\---

The mission in Grass was easier than the Akatsuki had expected. The mobster’s security was laughable, dead before they had a chance to react and Itachi’s katana quickly separated the man from his head.

Surrounded by the dead, with blood splattered across his face, and the sharingan glowing like a coal in his eyes, Itachi looked every inch the monster he pretended to be.

Then his nose wrinkled in disgust and he scrubbed his face on the inside of his cloak. “You get to carry the head,” Itachi mumbled.

Kisame couldn’t help, but laugh. “I figured.”

They collected the bounty and sent ¾ of it by wire back to Ame. The leftover paid for a night in one of the nice hotels-- real beds, good food, and hot baths.

Kisame woke far earlier than he had hoped he would. Itachi was already dressed and packing his bag.

“We get a new mission,” Kisame asked, voice rough with sleep. They normally had a few days at least between missions.

Itachi shook his head. “Go back to sleep.”

That just piqued Kisame’s curiosity. He sat up and frowned at Itachi. “Where are you going?”

“There’s something I need to look into.” He slipped an extra box of kunai into his pack and that really caught Kisame’s eye.

“What are you doing Itachi?”

“I need information and this is the closest we’ve been to Konoha in the last year. I’ll be back in 2 days at the most.” It wasn’t much of an explanation.

“Dying making you reckless?” Kisame asked. He flashed a sharp toothed smile at Itachi.

Itachi snorted. “Maybe,” he stood up and shouldered his bag, “but I was planning to make a detour before I got my diagnosis.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kisame offered. “I wouldn’t mind a rematch with the nut job in tights.”

“If you want to come, I won’t say no to the help.”

They were on the road 30 minutes later. Konoha was only a half day and they made good time.

\---

  
“I need a specific sort of Anbu,” Itachi explained. He and Kisame were hidden on a small bluff above the path around the village that the guards walked. “There’s almost always one of them assigned to guard duty. Guard duty is where the anbu who question orders end up and the elite force likes to have a spy among them.”

Kisame nodded.

Every 15 minutes, a different anbu passed below them.

“What information are you looking for?”

“This one,” Itachi hissed. He loosened his katana in his sheath and leapt off the bluff without answering. Kisame sighed and followed. 

Kisame realized quickly that he really wasn't needed.

Itachi already had the anbu pinned against the bluff and trapped in a genjutsu.

“Keep watch,” Itachi ordered. “He’s fighting my genjutsu. It will take a minute and most of my attention to get what I want.”

Kisame nodded and focused his senses. He wasn’t a great chakra sensor compared to someone who specialized in it, but he was better than most. It was a survival skill in the heavy mist of Kiri.

3 minutes later, Itachi was done. He cast a second genjutsu to keep erase the encounter from the man’s mind and render him unconscious before letting go.

“Did you get what you wanted?” Kisame asked as the man slumped to the ground.

Itachi turned around and a thrill of fear ran down Kisame’s spine. Itachi’s eyes still glowed violent with the mangekyo sharingan and blood ran down his cheeks, but the truly frightening part was the hard line of his mouth. Itachi’s lips were pressed together, biting back a snarl, trembling with barely contained fury.

“Who is he?” Kisame asked. Implied was the bigger question,  _ what had this anbu done to piss off the usually unflapale Uchiha? _

Itachi shook his head. “He’s no one. Just a pawn in game that should be over,” he spat. “Come on. We can’t stay here.”

Kisame followed Itachi. He was on high alert. Itachi strode through the forest without an ounce of caution. Anger and frustration was written in every line of the Uchiha’s body. Kisame knew if they were to have any heads up on pursuers, it would have to come from him.

On the edge of his perception, Kisame could feel the flicker a chakra. “They’re on our trail,” he said.

Itachi nodded, but otherwise didn’t respond. He kept his pace.

Kisame wondered if the Uchiha was looking for a fight. That wasn’t Itachi’s usual behavior, but neither was sneaking into Konoha to kidnap and interrogate an anbu. 

Itachi stopped at the edge of a canyon. Far below, a river boiled white over the rocks. “There’s a safe house in the cliff under us. It’s got chakra damping seals. We'll wait out the search party there,” Itachi said. He didn’t wait for Kisame to respond and stepped off the cliff, using chakra to walk down the vertical surface.

Kisame followed close behind.

The opening was narrow and hidden where the cliff cut back in on itself. Kisame had to shimmy sideways to get inside.

3 feet in, the entrance opened into a small cave about 10 foot by 10 foot with a ceiling just high enough for Kisame to stand upright.

Itachi had already lit a small lantern and was going through the supply cache stacked against the back wall. Canned food, bottles of water, boxes of kunai and shuriken, and 2 packs. From one of the packs, Itachi pulled a bedroll and tossed it to Kisame. 

“Might as well get comfortable?” Kisame muttered.

Itachi nodded and dug another bedroll out of the other pack. He laid it out against one wall and sat with his back against the wall.

Kisame could sense their pursuers clearly now. Big chakra reserves, well controlled, at least 6 of them. He could hear them talking when they stopped on the cliff overhead.

Itachi looked totally unconcerned. His eyes were closed.

Kisame thought the younger man might be meditating, trying to regain control. 

Kisame decided he didn’t like this. There was still blood on Itachi’s face, only hastily wiped away. His fists kept clenching and unclenching. Whatever was in the anbu’s head, it had shattered Itachi’s control in a way Kisame had never seen. He’d only seen Itachi lose his temper a handful of times. It always meant someone was about to die. Usually someone who deserved it. Usually someone who hurt kids.

When the search party moved away, Itachi stayed seated with his eyes closed.

Kisame went to look through the supply cache. He wanted to ask who this place belonged to, but bit his tongue. Instinct told him not to bother Itachi. 

One thing was certain, this bunker wasn’t an official Konoha bunker if the search party didn’t check it out.

The boxes of kunai and shuriken were old. Rust was beginning to color the blades. The canned food was also obviously old, but the cans were in good shape. It might be edible. The water was fine. 

The 2 packs caught Kisame’s attention. Based on the number of supplies, this place was only meant for a 2 man team. Konoha almost always operated in 3 man teams. 

Kisame opened one of the packs and dug through it. There were 2 changes of clothes (one set of men’s clothes for a civilian and one anbu uniform) and an envelope. The envelope contained 3 passports: one for Grass country, one for Kiri, and one for Iwa. They all had the same face on them. Kisame didn’t know the man in the pictures, but he looked familiar. Big, dark eyes and sharp, angular features. His hair was cut short, but shaggy around his ears. He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was the same charming smile Itachi used to convince innkeepers to give them a room or merchants to give up information.

Kisame set the passports aside and reached for the other bag. The contents were the same. He dug out the passports and frowned. The face on these he knew. Itachi was younger in the pictures, much younger, younger than Kisame had ever seen him.

“What is this place?” Kisame asked. 

Itachi didn’t respond. 

Kisame threw the pair of Kiri passports into Itachi’s lap. “What is this place?” he repeated.

Itachi opened his eyes. He picked up the passport with the other Uchiha’s face. “The remnants of another plan that didn’t work.” Itachi’s voice was bitter and sharp. He ran a finger over the other Uchiha’s picture.

Kisame walked over to Itachi. “Fuck it,” he muttered to himeslf and dropped to the ground 2 feet in front of Itachi. 

Itachi didn’t look up from the passport.

“I’ve let you keep your damn secrets for 6 years. I told the leader he could trust you, even though I know you told Konoha Akatsuki was coming for their jinchuuriki. I’m done. You owe me an explanation. I want to know what we are doing here and why you and the Leader have a secret bunker in Konoha.”

Itachi blinked up at Kisame in confusion. “Leader?”

Kisame gestured at the passport Itachi was holding. “Curly haired Uchiha. He’s scarred up and only has one eye, but the facial structure is right.”

Itachi shook his head. “This isn’t the Leader. This is Shisui, but I can see where you’d make the mistake.” Itachi swept his finger across the picture again. “There’s a family resemblance.” 

“You’re stalling,” Kisame said.

Itachi sighed. “This place was Shisui and I’s. We built it in case we ever needed to disappear. We were playing both sides of a civil war and we knew the cost of stopping the bloodshed would be our lives or our freedom or both. The last time I was here, we thought we’d figure out how to save everyone.”

Kisame racked his brain trying to figure out what civil war. Grass and Iwa hadn’t had any internal conflict for 2 generations. Kiri’s was over by the time Itachi was a genin.

“Itachi, what war?”

“The one between the Uchiha clan and Konoha.” Itachi met Kisame’s gaze and waited for the implications of that to sink in.

Kisame shook his head. “Konoha’s never had a civil war.”

Itachi nodded. “Because I killed them.” He looked back down at the passport. “Shisui’s the one who trained me. I had other teachers, but everything important I learned from him. He was my best friend and I loved him like a brother.” The saddest smile graced Itachi’s lips as he looked at the picture. “Shisui was the strongest Uchiha in generations. His genjutsu was unbreakable. We were going to use it to control my father and force the clan to call off the coup de eta.”

Kisame shivered. He remembered now, the other reason Shisui’s face was familiar. There’d been a passable sketch of it in the bingo book he’d received as a Kiri-nin. Shisui Uchiha had a flee on sight order that applied even to the swordsmen. He could only imagine how powerful a genjutsu would have to be to control the head of the Uchiha clan. “Did the genjutsu fail?” Kisame asked. He could see it now-- Itachi’s father killing Shisui for his betrayal, Itachi snapping and slaughtering the clan in revenge.

“We never had the chance to try. Shisui was attacked and mortally wounded by the other side. He escaped and killed himself in front of me to awaken my mangekyou sharingan. It fell to me to stop the coup and prevent a civil war from destroying the village.”

Kisame opened his mouth, but Itachi cut him off. “If you want answers, don’t interrupt. If I stop, I won’t start again.”

Kisame shut his mouth. 

Itachi touched his cheek where the dried blood from his right eye still lingered. “That’s the price for activating the sharingan’s ultimate form. You have kill someone you love. The emotional trauma is the trigger. The destruction of your eyesight is the operational cost.”

Kisame nodded. He understood that. All high level jutsus came with a cost. 

“Shisui made sure his body wouldn’t be found. If the clan knew he’d been killed by the village, there would have been war. Instead, people blamed me. How could they not? They knew what he was to me and they saw what I became after his death. I lost all influence with the clan. I couldn’t talk them down. There was no negotiating. It was going to be a slaughter. The clan couldn’t win the war, but they would fight to the last woman and child and decimate the village. There’d be no winners and no survivors among the Uchiha.”

“So you killed them,” Kisame said.

Itachi glared at him. “The village couldn’t just massacre a whole clan. The fallout would destroy the village. There’d likely still be a civil war. But, if one shinobi were to snap, annihilate the clan, and flee the village as a rogue shinobi it would be marked down in history as a tragedy.”

Kisame shifted. Itachi’s hands were clenched in trembling fists, but his voice was steady.

“I was the obvious choice for the mission. Socially awkward and isolated, the child genius, drafted into the anbu far too young, and already suspected of murdering his best friend. They offered me a deal. If I took the mission, the truth of the clan’s betrayal would die with them and the youngest Uchiha, the only one with no knowledge of the coup de eta, would be safe. Sasuke would be an orphan, the lone survivor of the village’s greatest tragedy, but he’d be alive and safe and cared for. They promised me.” Itachi’s voice broke on the last word.

“You’re still working for Konoha aren’t you?” Kisame’s voice was cold.

Itachi nodded and then shook his head. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“You’re spying on the Akatsuki for Konoha?” Kisame pressed.

“I was supposed to seek out the Akatsuki after the massacre, use it to earn a place among them, and report back to the Hokage if and when the Akatsuki became a threat.”

Kisame sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “How much have you told them?”

Itachi shook his head. “I’ve only made one intel drop. When it was decided we were ready to start hunting the jinchuuriki. Either someone found it and listened or it's a coincidence that they sent him away with one of the sannin.”

Kisame nodded and in the blink of an eye he had Itachi pinned against the wall with a kunai to the Uchiha’s throat. Kisame was careful to avoid Itachi’s eyes. 

“The Leader already knows.”

The kunai bit into Itachi’s throat, but stopped short of being lethal. He didn’t flinch.

“He found me after the massacre and offered me a place in the Akatsuki. He knew Konoha was sending me as a spy and he didn’t care.”

Kisame pulled the kunai back and stared at the blood running down Itachi’s throat. “If you’re lying, I’ll kill you. If you lie to me again, I’ll kill you.”

Itachi nodded. “Was it really a lie if you already knew?” he asked.

Kisame cursed and flopped back to his seat across from Itachi. He had known. In his gut, he’d known all along that Itachi’s story was something like this. “Why the fuck do you have any loyalty left to this place? The hokage had your best friend murdered and they forced you to kill your family. Was there ever any good they did for you?”

Itachi fought the urge to touch the cut on his neck. “It wasn’t the hokage. He didn’t know until I’d already completed my mission. He helped Shisui and I set up this place. The plan was for Shisui to disappear after the genjutsu on my father was complete.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Itachi picked his words with care. “I love my village, not for its darkness but for its light. The good people outnumber the bad. I love the ideas it was built on and the people who fight everyday to uphold those ideas. Despite everything, it’s my home.”

Kisame turned the answer over in his mind and shook his head. “After everything, you’re still a damn idealist.”

Itachi shrugged. “I try. And so do. It’s why you joined the Akatsuki and why you’re willing to die for their plan. You want to believe peace is possible as bad as I do.”

“So why come back now? This definitely wasn’t an intel drop.”

“I needed to know if Danzou was holding up his end of the deal. I needed to know my brother and my village will be safe after I’m gone,” Itachi explained.

“Who’s Danzou?”

“One of the Elders on the council that advises the hokage. Officially they're just advisors, but the truth is they hold just about as much power as the hokage and Danzou has been maneuvering and manipulating things behind the scenes since the death of the Fourth. He truly believes he’s working in the interest of the village and I used to believe it too. He oversees the elite units within the Anbu Blackops. I was one of his anbu and he’s the one who ordered the massacre. He had 2 other council members sign off on the mission inorder to bypass the hokage. The man I interrogated is one of Danzou’s high ranking pets.”

“And I take it this Danzou isn’t holding up his end of your deal?”

Itachi’s lips curled into a snarl. “No. He ordered Shisui’s death. I suspected, but never had any proof. He also orchestrated several key situations and events that caused tensions between the Uchiha and the village to escalate to a boiling point. Again, on bad days, I suspected, but I didn’t want to believe it and I had no evidence. According to the man I interrogated today, Danzou has Shisui’s eye and the eyes of every other Uchiha. I don’t know what he’s using them for, but that man helped collect the eyes.”

Kisame shuddered. Sure, it wasn’t uncommon for villages to experiment with the corpses of their enemies, especially if a kekkei genkai was involved, but this was extreme.

“Danzou didn’t trust the clan to use their eyes to the benefit of the village, so he orchestrated their destruction over the course of more than a decade. But he didn’t get what he wanted. He only got one of Shisui’s eyes. He doesn’t have the mangekyou sharingan in its full power and there’s only 2 chances left to get it. Danzou knows I’m out of his reach physically and he can’t risk the information I have getting out. My brother doesn’t have that protection. Danzou knows Sasuke is going to kill me and he’s going to come for him afterwards. He has spies in Orochimaru’s ranks and sleeper agents in the hokage’s guard. He’s prepared to seize control of the village if Tsunade puts up a fight.”

Itachi’s rage made sense. All at once, Itachi had confirmed that his superior, a man he trusted, had organized the destruction of everyone he loved for the sole purpose of stealing their abilities, seen his families’ corpses mutilated through the eyes of a man who helped with the mutilation, and learned that his little brother, the person he’d sacrificed everything to protect, was being groomed like a pig for slaughter.

Kisame leaned back and regarded Itachi with new eyes. “So what now?” 

And Itachi did something Kisame never expected. The Uchiha smiled. It wasn’t a charming smile. It was too wide. You could see his eyeteeth, just a bit more pointed than most people’s. “I’m going to kill Danzou and everyone else like him. I’ve got 2 years left and I intend to make them count. I want to die knowing my brother has a chance at surviving and knowing peace.”

Kisame grinned back. “Hunting corrupt bureaucrats is something I can get behind. Hell, I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of them with bounties on their heads. That’s a good enough excuse for most of the Akatsuki.”

Itachi raised an eyebrow. “So you’re not going to kill me for lying and spying?”

“Nah. You didn’t really lie. Your mouth said things and then your body language said the exact opposite. You told me the truth every time we passed some dark haired boy. It wasn’t hard to figure out the anniversaries and birthdays. You never hid who you were from me,” Kisame shifted and leveled Itachi with a hard stare. “If the leader doesn’t care, that’s good enough for me. But no more lies.”

Itachi nodded. He touched his throat and his fingers came away sticky with drying blood. He held the bloody hand up like someone swearing an oath. “I won’t lie and as long as Akatsuki’s objectives continue to align with my own, they have my loyalty.”

Kisame nodded. He could accept that. “So why didn’t you play the same persona around me that you do with the rest of the Akatsuki?”

“If I’m a poor actor, you are too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You’re a good man and you remind me of Shisui.”

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, I'm not sure how much more of this I will write. I've got a lot of ideas for this AU, but I'm also in the middle of writing another AU that at the very least will have priority over this one in terms of updates. I just couldn't resist putting the beginning of this on paper. 
> 
> Also, I know the Danzo vs Danzou spelling debate can get hot. I picked Danzou because its technically the correct romanji of his name and putting the bar over the o is a hassle.


End file.
